But The Beat Goes On....

The net neutrality amendment introduced by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) was tonight soundly defeated in the House vote on the Barton telecom reform bill. Despite signs that public opinion and press sentiment were rapidly shifting in favor of net neutrality regulations, the House voted down the amendment 152 to 269, handing the cable and telco lobbies a big victory.

In a wistful-sounding statement, Rep. Markey said

... DUMB!

Here's the dealio... The telco companies believe that they are in a power position.

In some ways they are... But not as much as they would like us all to believe.

Fortunately, with companies like Amazon who have MUCH MORE control over the internet lines as they relate to ecommerce, have given us, the little guy, an advantage, as with S3 we can all maintain a FULL internet presence, and expect that no matter who we are we will be able to gain access to the same customer base as everyone else.

3 Comments

Brett
2006-06-11 14:34:21

OK, so the telcos take over the terrestrial internet. What does the average netizen do? Do what Howard Stern did - get off the planet. Maybe we will see a counter-revolution of sorts - non-terrestrial, unregulated internet. Maybe Amazon-Google will buy into satellite internet. Or Intel-Microsoft will start up a north american WiMax internet. Doesn't the internet equalilze the little guy with the monopolies? As for me, I have satellite TV and satellite Radio, so if my incumbant monopolistic telco that just merged with (bought by) a former "infant" 'ringer' tries to squash my internet, phfltfft! I go galactic!

M. David Peterson
2006-06-12 18:40:37

Hey Brett :D

> "As for me, I have satellite TV and satellite Radio, so if my incumbant monopolistic telco that just merged with (bought by) a former "infant" 'ringer' tries to squash my Internet, phfltfft! I go galactic!"

I LOVE IT!! :D

Thanks for the laugh and the reason to smile.

Of course, I am definitely of the mentality that there are alternatives to the Net Neutrality bill, and the fact that there is some big phat money that can easily stand behind the WiMax technology (I think it was last week that I heard mention that MS has yet another "cash problem" in that they've got TOO MUCH of it sitting in the bank (around 35+ billion if not mistaken)) or any other technology that the telco's do not own.

With this in mind, you're right... This is definitely not something that should be seen as any sort of "end", I had just hoped that the House would have proven with their votes that they recognize the Internet is,

a) Not the property of the United States (.gov or .com)
b) That an opportunity existed to showcase they had more interest in the ideals of a free culture, than those of a corporate bureaucracy.

I guess I really shouldn't have considered that the above two items were within reason based on a past history of abuse in these areas...

But I guess I was just hoping that this time around things would have been different.